Current students
University of Melbourne
Santiago Marín Bascuñán, PhD student in BioSciences
Santiago is interested in how plants evolve relative to climate and after invading new landscapes. He is using the invasive blackberry as a focal organism to identify and evaluate genetic-based mechanisms that enable adaptation to new environments.
Shentao Chen, MSc student in Bioinformatics
Shentao is interested in how aphids overcome resistance in cultivated apple.
Students advised at University of California - Riverside
Conner Lay, PhD student through EEOB
co-advised with Dr. Kate Ostevik

email: clay007[at]ucr.edu

​Conner is interested in how plants interact with their abiotic and biotic environments. He wants to better understand how environmental changes such as habitat fragmentation and climate variation contribute to genetic diversity​ and adaptation.
Nate Collison, PhD student through BPSC
co-advised with Dr. Niels Groen

​email: wcoll010[at]ucr.edu 

Nate is broadly interested in molecular plant-biotic-environment interactions. He is focusing on the molecular mechanisms by which parasites manipulate their plant hosts, and the reciprocal means by which plants protect themselves.
Alumni
Zeyi Liu, MSc in Bioinformatics, 2025
Thesis: Landscape Genomics of the Gall-Maker Aphids​
Picture
Josh successfully found WAA in both WA and CA to help finish his project.
Josh Wemmer, MS in Entomology, 2019
​
Thesis: ​Characterizing the Dual Transcriptomes of Woolly Apple Aphid, Eriosoma lanigerum (Hausmann), and its Host, Malus domestica (Borkh.), Across a Host Resistance Spectrum